image copyright all rights reserved Jan Godown Annino
[Poetry bloggers can find the weekly reads superbly rounded up by Buffy Silverman.]
Our family of the North hopes for 80 degree days &
cools off with 50 degree nites.
But here in Florida we blister now until, October to early November.
A dear pal transplanted to Florida is not only under the sun, but also, gloriously pregnant. So for encouragement I scratched the memory of my own summer pregnancy days and thought of cool ways.
AVOIDS
Teach family/friends to avoid speaking these words or their various iterations near you –
baking
blistering
boiling
broil
flame
fire
fricassee
heat
hot
humid
roasting
sizzle
solar
steam
suffocating
sun
tar
toasting
Forget that you like spicy food
DO
Pop into your mouth –
washed individual grapes, spaced apart on a tray, covered, from freezer
same with frozen melon balls, any color; blueberries; ice slivers
A cold salad meal every day or several times in one day isn’t overdoing it
Baked/broiled/cooked foods can taste fantastic cold – steak in salad, for example, shrimp in salad, chicken in…
Move perfume/cologne stick to the fridge for impulsive wrist & ankle rubs
Keep a soft washcloth & small towel in a plastic bag in the fridge
Walk barefoot or watershoe-footed in water – the sea shore, lake shore, splash fountain, creek, pool
Walk on cool grass & in the shade of grandmother trees
Seek the outdoors in early a.m. & in the p.m.
Adore full moonlight & accomplish outdoors work during it
Adore the evening
Embrace linen without a worry about wrinkles – every breeze passes right through it
Before entering a parked vehicle, it should be prepared – windows down, A/C running a blast, dashboard fan on & towel on seat so you don’t stick
Sidewalks, pathways & roads are for walking in the evening
Keep 2 kiddie pools in the backyard – one for little ones & one for
you
Find books that bring you into the cool – GOING TO EXTREMES, COMING INTO THE COUNTRY…
Floating on your back in an expanse of cool should be the cardinal rule
images copyright all rights reserved Jan Godown Annino
Floating
by Jan Godown Annino
Eyes closed
Face up
Water buoys beyond sun shafts
A womb of wet
Where have I gone?
Afloat in an ocean
Drifting in a pond
Lazing on a lake
Am I also somewhere else?
Free of Fahrenheits
Feeling more like me
I am the queen of cool
copyrightJanGodownAnnino
And what about hats you may say.
Patience to read this far is rewarded with the best.
Thinking of sun hats I felt an old memory linking hats to E.B. White.
Sure enough when I pulled a collection down from the shelf, I found a marker for a summer poem.
These lines excerpted are from “A Father Does His Best,”
connecting summer sizzle, E.B. White & hats.
When this stanza begins, the narrator is at Lord & Taylor & later will visit other emporiums.
“A Father Does His Best”
by E. B. White
Said I to Lord & Taylor:
“Hot are the summer skies
And my son Joe would like to go
In a big straw hat in the year-old size
Have you got such a thing for, for summer skies,
A nice straw hat in the year-old size?
Said Lord & Taylor: “No.”
copyright E.B. White, all rights reserved
excerpted from p. 73, “A Father Does His Best”
in POEMS & SKETCHES of E. B. White
